The G-Armour was the primary configuration used by the crew of White Base during the war due to its rapid transformation to split into the Gundam and the G-Fighter.

G-Armour

Design

The G-Armour was the combination of the RX-78-2 Gundam with the Core Block System modular units, known as the G-Parts. There were two sets of G-Parts: the A-Parts and the B-Parts. A-Parts consisted of a nose with a canopy cockpit, a set of caterpillar treads, and a pair of beam cannons. The B-Parts was a fuselage with four thrusters.

The Gundam’s torso was connected to the A-Parts at the top and B-Parts at the bottom to form the G-Armour. The support craft was able to quickly undock and split into the Gundam and the G-Fighter when there was a need for a change in battle tactics.

G-Armour

The G-Armour increased the battle stamina of the G-Fighter by tapping on the Gundam’s power generator. However, the increased mass reduced the manoeuvrability of the G-Armour, especially on the ground where it was outmatched by the fast mobile suits from the Principality of Zeon such as the MS-09 Dom.

Armaments

The G-Armour was armed with beam cannons and missile launchers for ranged attacks. These were mounted on the A-Parts modular unit of the support craft.

Beam cannons

There were a pair of beam cannons mounted on the top of A-Parts, just behind the canopy cockpit. The cannons could operate longer in the G-Armour configuration compared to the G-Fighter because of the additional generator from the Gundam torso.

Missile launchers

The G-Armour had a missile launcher on each side of its nose. The missiles could be used against enemy mobile suits, ships or ground targets.

Shields

The G-Armour was mounted with two RX*M-Sh-008/S-01025 (Renpou eXperimental Medium Shield) shields, one on each side. Renpou means Federation in Japanese.

The shield was able to block most ballistic and explosive projectiles, providing greater protection for the A-Parts module in the G-Armour where the canopy cockpit was located.

However, Yoshiyuki Tomino felt that the G-Armour was considered closer to the super robot genre, instead of the real robot genre that he envisioned for the series. Thus, the G-Armour was removed in the compilation movies, and was replaced by the FF-X7Bst Core Booster.

Trivia

The G-Armour appeared in Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme vs Maxi Boost as a playable unit. Although it was just another playable form of the Gundam, it was actually a reference to it being more of a super robot machine. It was able to combine with other segments to augment its abilities.